Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Is it sleepwalking or is it swimming in the wake of the stream of consciousness that moves our souls in ways we never dreamed possible, both seem to push the mind further than it might feel comfortable, but once it is accepted as a conduit for thinking beyond the perceived normal then it is possible to view any artform as inevitable, that thinking alone is not a pastime to be shackled or ridiculed by those who seek to imply that the action is unproductive.

For what we witness in the actions of The Sleepwalker is not confusion or random skirmishes in the night-time, it is a battle of wills that is dominated by the need to stride into the unknown and clash with the notion of the contented lack of imagination and prediction.

It is in the odyssey created by Noah Deemer, alongside episodic influences on various tracks from Crowmeat Bob on saxophone, TJ Maiani on drums, Boogie Reverie with the guitar solo on Please Life, and Libby Rodenbough on strings on Outlaw, that makes the journey of the one who visits the world of darkness and tight eyes the traveller with the capacity to see the world in a different hue, to tell the story that is not crowded in the beige and grey of existence, but instead a sense of glorious colour.

Across tracks such as the album opener Modern Ruins, Underwater Green/Coming Down, the aforementioned Outlaw, Please Life, and the album’s title track, The Sleepwalker, New York City’s Noah Deemer installs in the listener a gift of pilgrimage to a far off place where the sleepwalker is aware of all that is around them, and rather than being scared to wake them, we should encourage this dreamtime walkabout as one of foretelling, of projecting, and a search for the truth in a world that is normally closed off to us.

An album of beauty wrapped in discovery, a gracious dream for all to witness.

Ian D. Hall